


The Permanent Efficacy of Grace

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-20
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing that angels and birds have in common is the delicacy, and the importance, of their wings. Dean learns this the hard way. Title comes from The Mountain Goats' "Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Permanent Efficacy of Grace

  
Wing bones are incredibly delicate. Fragile. They're difficult to set, and many birds who break their wings (especially if the break is severe enough) have trouble flying for the rest of their lives. Some of them will never fly again at all.

Angels are not birds. But they're close enough for government work.

~

When Castiel appears in their hotel room, bloody and panting and so obviously _in pain_ that Dean's heart breaks for him, just a little, it becomes apparent after only a few minutes that something is wrong. More wrong than just showing up covered in blood. He doesn't let Sam or Dean get too close, and he slumps down onto one of the beds without anyone even needing to tell him to rest. Castiel folds his arms tight across his stomach, and hunches there, like he's afraid he's going to throw up.

Sam makes the mistake of trying to touch his shoulder, and Cas flinches back so hard Dean is worried he'll toss himself off the bed. He manages to stay perched there, but Sam doesn't try again.

Three days later, and all Dean can see is that, whatever's wrong, it's getting worse. Castiel stays well clear of anything that he could conceivably bump into – walls, chairs, appliances – and he's taken to teleporting through doorways instead of just walking through them. He refuses to sit in the Impala. His face draws tighter and tighter by the hour, with pain, with despair. Sam starts making stupid, concerned chicken noises about Castiel's fading Grace, and the angel just _looks_ at him, and then disappears for an hour.

And then Dean yells at Sam, because seriously, why'd he have to go and do that? It doesn't take a fucking rocket scientist to be able to see that Cas is in pain. That he's trying to lick his wounds, whether they're physical or metaphysical.

Sam whines like a little girl until Dean agrees to do something about it. Except it's not really a hardship, you know, because Cas is like this _because of Dean_. He's losing his powers because he believed in Dean enough to rebel against Heaven, and that shit is _powerful_.

Sometimes, when he's feeling secure enough in his manhood to take his feelings out of their lockbox, he considers the idea that Castiel might be a little bit in love with him. And that's terrifying and profound and sort of an 'Oprah's book club'-type plot, but it's also…sort of nice.

Which is why they summon Gabriel.

~

"His wing's broken," Gabriel says immediately, once the subject of Castiel is brought up. He sips his Mai Tai while Dean and Sam try to process the information.

"Like…like a bird's wing?" Sam tries, tentatively, and Gabriel snorts.

"Of course not like a bird's wing. You people get everything wrong – we don't walk around with fluffy white swan's wings attached to our shoulders. They'd be useless. You have any idea how big they'd have to be, to carry us?"

Dean definitely didn't perform this summoning ritual so he could be lectured about _swans_. He gives Gabriel five minutes of feeling superior and then he starts talking about how they still have some holy oil left, probably enough to deep fry themselves an archangel, or at the very least enough to give some nasty third-degree burns.

Gabriel goes from 'total douchebag' to 'insincerely helpful' in about two seconds flat.

"He needs to have his wings set," is Gabriel's explanation. "Possibly re-broken and _then_ set. Who knows how long he's been trying to ignore them? You'll have to get him to manifest them for you. It's the only way you'll be able to see them without your eyes boiling in your head."

"You could help," Sam says. He sounds too earnest, too hopeful. Dean isn't at all surprised when Gabriel gives him a sad look (like he's sorry, like he actually wishes he _could_ help), and then snaps his fingers, and disappears.

~

Castiel, predictably, isn't on board with the plan.

"I am fine," he says.

And then he passes out on the bed.

Except that totally doesn't keep him from repeating himself, "I am _fine_, Dean," when he wakes up. Dean isn't the one hovering like an anxious hen (that's Sam, in case it wasn't already obvious), but there must be something in his expression that says that he's…worried. More so than usual. About _Cas_.

Finally, he says, "Please, Cas," and the angel blinks at him, his too-intense blue eyes making Dean feel vaguely uncomfortable.

"…You may observe them," Castiel finally says, after a silence that is filled with so many different whispers of feeling that Dean doesn't even want to _try_ to catalogue them all right now. "If I decide that I no longer wish you to do so…"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean interrupts, and Castiel's lips press together, a thin line of pinkish-white. "I get it. We don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with, your virtue stays intact, all that jazz. Now just…take your coat off and lay down. Or…however you want to do this."

Sam makes a noise like he's hyperventilating into his shirt or something. Dean glares at him.

"Sorry," Sam says. "It's just…you've seen his wings before, and I haven't."

"Dean has seen the shadow of my wings," Castiel corrects mildly. He shrugs his coat off his shoulders (wincing as he does so), and then carefully folds it, and leaves it on the nightstand. The coat is quickly followed by his shirt, which he unbuttons with the sort of slowness usually reserved for people far sicker. They're the movements of someone who's _hurting_, and Castiel doesn't even bother to fold the shirt – he just drops it, and then carefully kneels on the bed, lowering himself down to his stomach.

His shoulders are bright red. Not 'I was lying outside and I got sunburned' red, but _infection_ red. His skin looks hot to the touch, and Dean suddenly realizes that they never asked Gabriel _how_ to set Castiel's wing. Is it like dealing with regular bones? Bird bones? Or will it be like trying to break bars of titanium? Dean already knows that hitting Castiel is like hitting a brick wall.

Sam nudges him. _Don't stare,_ his expression says – Dean knows because that's the bitchface that Sam wears when he thinks Dean is doing something inappropriate and potentially offensive.

Dean kicks him in the shin, and then sits on the edge of the bed. Castiel tenses, and Dean immediately touches the angel's bare side – far from the red and angry inflammation of his shoulders.

"Hey," he says softly. "Just me and Sam. We'll fix this, Cas."

"There is nothing to be fixed," Castiel murmurs, and then there's a brief flash of light – like passing headlights – and Dean can see, he can _see_, why Cas would think that.

They aren't bird wings. They aren't even close. If Dean _had_ to compare them to anything, it wouldn't be an animal – it would be a concept. Sound, controlled chaos, ice storms, the sort of power that could level a city. All wrapped up in a shape that's vaguely wing-like, but not really. They're great, arching boughs of _Grace_, and Dean can see, now, where they've broken from the rest of Castiel, how they've healed (if that's even the right word) the wrong way. There are bits of the swirling light and shadow that just seem…jagged. Unhealthy.

"Woah," Sam breathes, but he doesn't dare come closer. "What…what can we do? It's not like setting an arm, Dean."

Dean shrugs. He refuses to admit to his own helplessness, but Sam is right – this is so far beyond with the two of them know that it might as well be impossible.

"I told you," Cas says softly. "I will be fine."

And then he shifts, like he's getting ready to put his wings away again, in whatever other space he stores them when they aren't like this, huge and tragic and beautiful.

Dean makes a soft noise, a _scared_ noise (and one he'll never admit to), and fumbles for Castiel's shoulder, tries to hold him in place.

His fingers card through the wispy almost-strands of feathers, or sinew, or light. Castiel stiffens, squeezes his eyes shut as if in anticipation of pain…

But there's nothing.

Nothing at all.

Castiel cautiously opens one eye.

"Dean," he says.

Sam looks like he's about to have a heart attack or something. He makes a soft, stupid squeaking noise and then flees the room. Pussy.

"Uh-huh," Dean says, mesmerized by the play of light and color over his fingers. The broken, jagged pieces of Grace curve beneath his palm, softening and then flowing back into place. They look better. Not entirely _healed_, but certainly more _right_ than they looked before. Castiel's expression has changed from 'pained' to something close to awe. Dean curls his fingers around what could be a primary feather, what could be a long arch of bone, and it shivers under his touch, and then melts back into position.

"Dean," Castiel sighs. A shaking, shivering note in his voice catches Dean's attention.

"Yeah," he says, more firmly than before. "Cas, what exactly am I doing?"

"You are…" Castiel seems to struggle to form the words. Whatever Dean is doing must feel _really_ good, especially after days and days of nothing but pain. "You are…mending my wings."

"Ah. That explains it." No it fucking _doesn't_. "Cas, _how_ am I fixing your wings?"

He presses his fingers through the dark shadows that the jagged edges have created, and they smooth out, become lighter. Like scar tissue. It's healing, but it'll never be the same again. Functional, but, Dean thinks, not pretty. Well. Not pretty to other angels, maybe.

It's the most beautiful thing Dean has ever seen.

"When I pulled you from the depths of Hell," Castiel says softly, "I gripped your soul without the aid of a vessel. A portion of my Grace must have…" He gasps as Dean runs his hand through a particularly nasty-looking gash of shadow, right near the base of his wings. That would explain the inflamed shoulders.

"Rubbed off on me," Dean finishes, because that's basically what it amounts to. "So I've been walking around with a piece of angel inside me? Kinky, Cas."

"It was not intentional," Castiel sighs. "Although had I known, I am not certain I would have regretted it."

"Well, it's sure as shit coming in handy now."

"Indeed."

Dean hums thoughtfully, and continues to comb his fingers through the tatters of Castiel's wings, until there's nothing but the angelic equivalent of healthy scar tissue, and the lingering feeling that Dean is missing something.

~

About a week later, Sam finally mans up, puts on his big girl panties, and sets his salad fork down. Dean stares at him over his cheesesteak and fries.

"What," he says.

"So, have you and Castiel picked out promise rings yet?"

Dean scowls, picks up the soggiest, ketchup-y fry he can find, and then flings it at Sam's head. Sam makes a wounded buffalo sound and bats his hands ineffectually at the air.

Something in Dean's head clicks.

_Grace,_ he thinks. _That's like the angelic equivalent of a soul. So I had my hands buried wrist-deep in Castiel's soul. Touching it. Fuck. Stroking it._

Dean considers his cheesesteak.

_I should try buying him dinner first,_ he decides, and laughs when Sam picks drippy, ketchup-covered fry bits off of his shoulder.


End file.
